Swiss allmends, and a walk to see them

by F. Barham Zincke

Accuse not nature; she hath done her part:

Do thou but thine; and be not diffident

Of wisdom: she deserts thee not, if thou

Dismiss not her.—Milton.

August 29.—We had thought of ascending the Sparrenhorn this morning: but now the aspect of things forbad such an undertaking. The Bell Alp was in the clouds. At such altitudes this means damp, rawness, shivering: nothing to see, and nothing to do. At 10 o’clock things were no better, and there was no prospect of their getting better; and so we decided to say our adieu to our good host, and to go down to Brieg. He had done for us all he could, having put up for us three beds in what had been intended for the fumoir of his hotel, but which cannot, in the height of the season, be afforded for such a purpose.

Brieg was reached in three hours. A descent of so many, it is five thousand, feet must be more or less good, and Alpine in character. Although it may not have anything particularly striking, still it must have upland pastures and pine woods, rills and rocks, prairies, first without and then with orchards: and there must always be mountains in sight, besides the one you are descending.

This was our last walk. In the conclusion of what has for some time been giving pleasure there is sadness: and more so when the pleasure has been of the stirring, and not of the Sybarite kind. If at the moment we had thought of the Sybarite’s case, we should have said that he had no business to be a Sybarite, and was rightly served. Certainly the entrance into Brieg, after the Eggischhorn and the Bell Alp, appeared heinously lowland and hatefully alluvial. Within the town the shops, the pavements, the diligences, the churches, the Post Office proclaimed to us that our delightful wanderings had only brought us back again to what seemed for the moment like the pestilent prose of life. For us henceforth would be no more summons from the sun, watched for, and obeyed with a ready mind, to meet him on the mountain side; no more, the day through, should we walk before him; no more should we contemplate with contentment the glories of his withdrawal to give the needed rest to man and beast. For us no more trudging on, hour after hour, to see we knew not precisely what, with the feeling that, though it might not be particularly worth seeing when we had come to it, still that it was well worth while going to see it. No more grand views of snow-fields and ice-rivers. No more of nature’s battlemented and pinnacled ramparts and castles far above us while the storm was raging far below us. No more pleasant halts at mountain châlets, or on the turf by the huddling streamlet, in such haste to get down to the valley. No more turning into wayside inns, not knowing what we were to find in them except a welcome. No more hunger and thirst. No more ice-cold draughts from sparkling springs. Our Switzer days and doings had now ended; and we were returning to regular hours, regular work, morning calls, eight o’clock dinners, and the manners and customs of the latter part of the third quarter of the nineteenth century.

In the afternoon, as we walked along the embankment of the Saltine, we cast some longing lingering looks on the Bell Alp and the snow about it; and, too, on the opposite snow-fields, right and left of the Simplon. After this, while loafing about the streets, we found ourselves opposite the shop of the Barber of Brieg, whose record is in the ‘Month’ of last year—the undisputed monarch, in the barber department, of all that he surveys in Brieg. There was no resisting the desire to see him again: at all events he was my only acquaintance in the place. His door, as I opened it, rang his shop-bell, but he was not there to hear it. This was what I had expected. I should have been disappointed had it been otherwise. The woman, however, who keeps the little grocery shop opposite, and with whom last year I had had, seated on the bench by her doorside, half an hour’s talk, while her bibulous neighbour was being looked for, heard the bell and came out of her shop. There was a smile on her face to imply that the little event of last year was not at all forgotten. Indeed, she looked as if she had been expecting me, and was glad to see me. In anticipation, it must have been, of my turning up that evening, he had told her in which of his resorts he might be found. It was close by, and he was soon unearthed. Of course, I thought it better to be shaved now by my old acquaintance than to have to shave myself early to-morrow morning. The good woman, who had not forgotten that morning of last year, will henceforth be able to add to the weight of metal in her gibes the evening of this day.

August 30.—Were off by the first diligence for Sierre, where we were to take the train en correspondance for Lausanne. The day was bright; there was none of the dust of last year; and the drive down the valley was pleasant. Was it not the valley of the Rhone? And were there not the lateral confluent valleys to note, with thoughts of what they led up to and of where their streams came from? And then there was the aspect of things in the valley itself; the evident air of neglect and of waste of opportunity. We could see that we were now in the most improvable and least improved part of Switzerland. We passed through tracts in which every particle of humus had been washed out of and floated off from the soil by the permitted overflow of the freshets of the Rhone; and through others which were still willow thickets and marshes. If the Rhone were embanked, as is the Aare, the Linth, and many other Swiss streams, all this land might be reclaimed: the shingle and sand, now naked, might soon be converted into goodly meadows by spreading over them a little earth, and by irrigation, for irrigation in Switzerland will produce good grass anywhere. And besides, if the Rhone were embanked, then there would be everywhere the possibility of utilizing its stream for spinning and weaving. And this will come here, the priests notwithstanding, for it will come in every valley of Switzerland. It is ‘the manifest destiny’ of the country. The first step will be the continuance of the railway to Brieg, and through the Simplon. This will bring cotton, silk, and wool to be worked up, and will take it to market when worked up. It will bring the machinery, and the iron wanted for repairs, and the coal that will be required both in making the repairs, and for supplementing any deficiency in the water power. All this can be done, and will be done. And then those of the population, as with the land, who are improvable will be improved; and those among the former who are not improvable will be improved from the scene.

Another advantage that will result from the coming state of things will be that the larger, and busier, and more active-minded population of the future will be better fed than the existing population. In exchange for the fruits of their labour they will then have brought to them good wheaten bread and beef and mutton. At present the staple food here is, as you see, maize and potatoes, somewhat fortified and corrected by their acid wine and rough brandy. This is not the kind of food that such a climate requires. It enfeebles mind as well as body; and these enfeeblements include that of morality.